birds
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Steve Davy
- Posts: 1338
- Joined: 2011/07/18 10:37:38 UTC
Re: birds
Blue Planet II is now on Netflix. Mind blowing new stuff is what I have been seeing...
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Got back on schedule - a bit before midnight at the end of 2019/01/23 at BWI, a bit after to the driveway courtesy Lyft. I'm still majorly trashed. HM went to the walk-in clinic the next morning, they sent him to the Emergency Room, and the Emergency Room was poised to hospitalize him pending the blood test results.
I've gotta make sure I NEVER get chiggered again. Just staying out of vegetation beyond half inch high lawn grass isn't doing the trick. Must've gotten nailed on Morning One in the gardens of the Hotel Bougainvillea, Santo Tomás - under nine crowflight miles a wee bit south of east from Juan Santamaria International - SJO. The realization hit me on 2019/01/01. Picked up a couple more hits at around that time and that was the end of the attacks but not the suffering. Still dealing with the latter.
Just did a search for "chiggers gaiters". I think that's the ticket. Get a good pair, stay dusted up with sulfur powder, pretend you're naked when making decisions about vegetation to avoid.
Wasn't able to do the compression stockings on the Alaska trip until it was all but finished. Started out with them on this one and wore them as much as I could stand. They were a BIG help and I was able to keep the swelling (right leg was the major problem) under a reasonable level of control. But there were times when toes would start burning and turning scarlet, particularly earlier in the trip, and I'd hafta quickly lose the boots and rip them off - sometimes while driving. At one point I thought I'd lost one upon having opened the car door and thought about the implications. I'll be traveling with a spare pair in the future.
Also - big surprise - need to minimize upright time as much as possible. Fuck walking trails for birds. You're usually much better off hanging out in a lodge observation area and letting them come to you anyway. But I also found myself walking for miles in the room organizing and reorganizing gear at ends of days.
HM had done Costa Rica once before 1981/01 and he planned the agenda for this one. And we covered just about every habitat the country had to offer. In terms of nights per accommodation it went like:
One:
- Hotel Bougainvillea
- Hotel Carara
Two:
- Savegre Reserve
- Cascata Del Bosco
- Vista Drake
- Rancho Naturalista
- Playa Negra Guesthouse
- Selva Bananito
- Selva Verde
- Hacienda Guachipelin
- Palo Verde
- Villa Lapas
Three:
- Arenal Observatory Lodge
Those and some side trips translated to about 2.1K road kilometers. I'd majorly failed to appreciate the ruggedness of the country when studying Google Earth and punching waypoints into the GPS prior to the trip and almost always astonished by the areas I'd been assuming would be relatively flat. Five crowflight clicks almost always translated to ten times the distance in demanding switchback driving and one would tend to need about a day of recovery time for each relocation.
It seems like whenever one reserves a car the rental company lets you have the next size up at no additional charge. Thanks Alamo - more gas, bigger carbon footprint, more difficult to maneuver oneself about. 2012 Daihatsu Terio - manual five speed four wheel drive. Felt underpowered but... What the hell, I can deal with that aspect.
I'd read an advisory that characterized Costa Rican drivers were aggressive testosterone poisoned asshole accidents waiting to happen. My impression was that on the average they were actually pretty damn good. The environment was such that the Darwin effect was gonna kick in pretty fast and brutally otherwise.
A lot of them wanted to cruise faster than I did and I made every effort to accommodate them. I'd speed up whenever I noticed somebody behind me closing fast and signal, get over, and slow as safe passing opportunities presented themselves. And they really appreciated what I was doing.
Easy to spot the douchebags - brake lights on for steep descents. I'd find a place to pull off the road and try to give them enough time remove themselves as influences on what I'd be trying to accomplish.
The Garmin 3590 seemed to be acting funny during the flight from BWI to SJO. Was showing us right over Florida's Gulf Coast when what I was seeing out the window had us about five miles inland. And when we got on the ground I noticed in horror that all the street detail had vanished.
A few major arteries remained but they were crudely drawn. I figured that this would be what one would be seeing with only the stock US map loaded. I'd loaded all of my waypoints in as coordinates harvested from Google Earth (I much prefer doing it that way and, besides, Costa Rica doesn't use/have street addresses) so we knew the position of Driving Target One - the Hotel Bougainvillea - so by checking the paper map, closing in using the main drags, final approaching via trail and error...
The next day the proper mapping detail reappeared. Later figured out that when thing get buggy the solution is to pop the memory card, reinstall, force a reload. I'd known that before but...
---
P.S. - 2019/01/28 14:30:00 UTC
Right after submission I noticed that this post number, 11322, is the elevation in feet of Cerro de la Muerte - the seventh highest peak in Costa Rica and the highest you can reach by road. It's just about 350 yards off the Pan-Am Highway - which tops out at 10942 in that stretch (shortly before turning down and south off the ridge) - and you can pull off and do the difference via dirt road if you want. We didn't as we were trying to make time on the afternoon of New Year's Day and were driving in a cloud so that would've been just more of what we'd been seeing.
Cerro Chirripó, just another thirty klicks ESE down the Cordillera de Talamanca, is the country's highest and beats de la Muerte by 1210 feet.
I've gotta make sure I NEVER get chiggered again. Just staying out of vegetation beyond half inch high lawn grass isn't doing the trick. Must've gotten nailed on Morning One in the gardens of the Hotel Bougainvillea, Santo Tomás - under nine crowflight miles a wee bit south of east from Juan Santamaria International - SJO. The realization hit me on 2019/01/01. Picked up a couple more hits at around that time and that was the end of the attacks but not the suffering. Still dealing with the latter.
Just did a search for "chiggers gaiters". I think that's the ticket. Get a good pair, stay dusted up with sulfur powder, pretend you're naked when making decisions about vegetation to avoid.
Wasn't able to do the compression stockings on the Alaska trip until it was all but finished. Started out with them on this one and wore them as much as I could stand. They were a BIG help and I was able to keep the swelling (right leg was the major problem) under a reasonable level of control. But there were times when toes would start burning and turning scarlet, particularly earlier in the trip, and I'd hafta quickly lose the boots and rip them off - sometimes while driving. At one point I thought I'd lost one upon having opened the car door and thought about the implications. I'll be traveling with a spare pair in the future.
Also - big surprise - need to minimize upright time as much as possible. Fuck walking trails for birds. You're usually much better off hanging out in a lodge observation area and letting them come to you anyway. But I also found myself walking for miles in the room organizing and reorganizing gear at ends of days.
HM had done Costa Rica once before 1981/01 and he planned the agenda for this one. And we covered just about every habitat the country had to offer. In terms of nights per accommodation it went like:
One:
- Hotel Bougainvillea
- Hotel Carara
Two:
- Savegre Reserve
- Cascata Del Bosco
- Vista Drake
- Rancho Naturalista
- Playa Negra Guesthouse
- Selva Bananito
- Selva Verde
- Hacienda Guachipelin
- Palo Verde
- Villa Lapas
Three:
- Arenal Observatory Lodge
Those and some side trips translated to about 2.1K road kilometers. I'd majorly failed to appreciate the ruggedness of the country when studying Google Earth and punching waypoints into the GPS prior to the trip and almost always astonished by the areas I'd been assuming would be relatively flat. Five crowflight clicks almost always translated to ten times the distance in demanding switchback driving and one would tend to need about a day of recovery time for each relocation.
It seems like whenever one reserves a car the rental company lets you have the next size up at no additional charge. Thanks Alamo - more gas, bigger carbon footprint, more difficult to maneuver oneself about. 2012 Daihatsu Terio - manual five speed four wheel drive. Felt underpowered but... What the hell, I can deal with that aspect.
I'd read an advisory that characterized Costa Rican drivers were aggressive testosterone poisoned asshole accidents waiting to happen. My impression was that on the average they were actually pretty damn good. The environment was such that the Darwin effect was gonna kick in pretty fast and brutally otherwise.
A lot of them wanted to cruise faster than I did and I made every effort to accommodate them. I'd speed up whenever I noticed somebody behind me closing fast and signal, get over, and slow as safe passing opportunities presented themselves. And they really appreciated what I was doing.
Easy to spot the douchebags - brake lights on for steep descents. I'd find a place to pull off the road and try to give them enough time remove themselves as influences on what I'd be trying to accomplish.
The Garmin 3590 seemed to be acting funny during the flight from BWI to SJO. Was showing us right over Florida's Gulf Coast when what I was seeing out the window had us about five miles inland. And when we got on the ground I noticed in horror that all the street detail had vanished.
A few major arteries remained but they were crudely drawn. I figured that this would be what one would be seeing with only the stock US map loaded. I'd loaded all of my waypoints in as coordinates harvested from Google Earth (I much prefer doing it that way and, besides, Costa Rica doesn't use/have street addresses) so we knew the position of Driving Target One - the Hotel Bougainvillea - so by checking the paper map, closing in using the main drags, final approaching via trail and error...
The next day the proper mapping detail reappeared. Later figured out that when thing get buggy the solution is to pop the memory card, reinstall, force a reload. I'd known that before but...
---
P.S. - 2019/01/28 14:30:00 UTC
Right after submission I noticed that this post number, 11322, is the elevation in feet of Cerro de la Muerte - the seventh highest peak in Costa Rica and the highest you can reach by road. It's just about 350 yards off the Pan-Am Highway - which tops out at 10942 in that stretch (shortly before turning down and south off the ridge) - and you can pull off and do the difference via dirt road if you want. We didn't as we were trying to make time on the afternoon of New Year's Day and were driving in a cloud so that would've been just more of what we'd been seeing.
Cerro Chirripó, just another thirty klicks ESE down the Cordillera de Talamanca, is the country's highest and beats de la Muerte by 1210 feet.
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Got on the Southwest plane 2018/12/29 at BWI in pretty good time and shape. 5:05 nonstop to SJO starting 08:45. Got a good boarding position and scored my preference of an aft starboard window seat. Then one of the two Flight Management Computers went down. After about an hour they got it back up but by then they'd started transferring luggage to te Plan B plane. So we got off rather late but were able to make up a fair bit of time.
Flew over Cuba, picked up the Nicaraguan coast, got to see Lake Nicaragua. Bull Shark territory. But they can't survive the fresh stuff without returning to the Caribbean after three years via the Rio San Juan - the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica for a very long stretch - to salt back up and reproduce.
Swung west over Costa Rica’s NW/SE running string of volcanoes then turned east for final into the Central Valley. I was stunned by the steepness and height of what I was seeing out my side of the plane.
Moderate hell winding through the line to clear customs and finding the shuttle to the off-site rental shuttle.
Hotel Bougainvillea is ten acres worth of facilities and botanical gardens near an edge San Jose area sprawl not far south of Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo. Major birder base of operations and staging post. In the morning HM takes a stroll and almost steps on a Blue-Crowned Motmot in the walkway. (I only got one fairly crappy shot at this bird through the trees over the course of the trip.) I've gotta reconfigure bags and gear from compact plane to quickly accessible field mode. Gawd that exercise can eat up a lot of time and energy.
Breakfast with fruit feeders on the other side of the glass. Great Kiskadees, Blue-Gray Tanagers, Clay-Colored Robins for company. That robin is the same genus as our American Robin species and looks just like it 'cept it's fairly uniformly brown. Its song got it status as Costa Rica's national bird but the plumage is astoundingly dull in comparison to just about anything else anyone could think of in that neck of the woods. Seem to be just about everywhere one looks throughout the country - or at least anywhere anybody's maintaining a fruit feeder.
I do an abbreviated gardens walk after breakfast. I'm surprised to note a Monarch butterfly or two 'cause I'd always thought it was a northern North American beast whose southernmost range was the south central Mexican wintering grounds. But Danaus plexippus is found all the way down on the continent and on the other sides of both the Atlantic and Pacific and a closely related bug does a good chunk of the northern area of South America.
We roll southeast into Cartago for a short stop at the Básilica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, on SSE into the Orosi Valley, back up north and east for lunch at La Casona del Cafetal on Lake Cachí, a dammed section of Rio Reventazón which is the main drain to the east out of the Central Valley.
In the parking area there's a tree in which I find a huge and spectacular Montezuma Oropendola. A closer look reveals a basket nest. A guy from one of the crafts stands off the edge of the lot unhooks a nest he'd collected after it had fallen and hands it to me. I insert my hand in the small opening at the top and totally lose my arm.
Not long into the trip I realize that it'll be a rare moment when we're NOT seeing Montezuma Oropendolas. When one or more of them descend upon a fruit feeder everything else clears out. Same deal we were seeing with the Cresteds in Trinidad.
Not much for the scope on the lake - a distant and partially hidden Great Egret. Lotsa mostly Turkey Vultures soaring the far slope and thermalling. A Rufous-Collared Sparrow nest being tended a few feet from our table.
Then back west through Cartago to pick up the Pan-Am and point the car towards Panama. I've put HM as a driver on the rental agreement 'cause I'm not fond of wheel hogging - in principle anyway. He's astoundingly mechanically clueless and is constantly irritated with me whenever I downshift to slow a vehicle. I know this is because he thinks that what's slowing the vehicle is transmission friction and wear - just like when braking it's friction and wear with pads, disks, drums. Attempts at education and/or recommendations to read the fuckin' manuals are treated as the most vile of insults. But this ain't gonna fly in this neck of Central America.
I get mildly violent and explain to him the concept of engine vacuum/braking - like it says in the fuckin' manual - and, much to my surprise, achieve some degree of success in getting through. We head down the Cordillera de Talamanca - climbing through cloudbase, mostly staying within, once or twice breaking through the top into sun and blue. Incredibly spectacular. And he's doing surprisingly well - even accepting a bit of coaching now and then.
We reach the turnoff to San Gerardo de Dote and our Savegre Reserve next destination. We're a bit over a hundred feet shy of ten thousand feet and we're gonna descend 28 hundred feet in under four crowflight / 5.7 "road" miles. This is a cliff with switchbacks and I take the helm. Screaming in first just about the whole way - air conditioning on and next to nothing in the way of brakes. And there'd have been even less if I'd earlier had the guts to look down at the instruments panel and realize that I'd only been doing about eighty percent of redline when I'd started to get real worried.
I'd never seen anything like it before and was rather proud of the job I did - minimizing stress on the car and maintaining wide safety margins.
The "Savegre Hotel, Natural Reserve & Spa" is industrial birding. Big complex, lotsa guides and guided excursions. Settled into 143 and took in our surroundings.
We get a couple of soaring Redtails. This (adult) pair is the first and will be the last of the trip. And they're resident - rather than migrants from back up north. And resident birds have low underside rufous plumage - which we can see.
They don't have feeders in the complex but they do have flowers and there's enough hummer action to keep things interesting.
A small group apologizes for invading our lodge space and checks out a White-Throated Mountain-Gem (hummer) nest out on the end of a branch in the narrow space between ours and the next unit to the south. Hell, if you're gonna keep turning us on to stuff like that keep invading our space all and any time you want. It's stuffed with two kids who look like they should've fledged yesterday.
Also have a Purple-Throated Mountain-Gem parking in some branches just in front of and above our porch.
The night sky - to someone who normally resides in Baltimore/Washington area light pollution hell - is spectacular. Ditto for virtually all the other stops in the country. But the elevation here totally blows away every other overnight location we hit in the country.
---
Amended:
2019/01/31 06:05:00 UTC
2019/02/01 13:25:00 UTC
Flew over Cuba, picked up the Nicaraguan coast, got to see Lake Nicaragua. Bull Shark territory. But they can't survive the fresh stuff without returning to the Caribbean after three years via the Rio San Juan - the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica for a very long stretch - to salt back up and reproduce.
Swung west over Costa Rica’s NW/SE running string of volcanoes then turned east for final into the Central Valley. I was stunned by the steepness and height of what I was seeing out my side of the plane.
Moderate hell winding through the line to clear customs and finding the shuttle to the off-site rental shuttle.
Hotel Bougainvillea is ten acres worth of facilities and botanical gardens near an edge San Jose area sprawl not far south of Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo. Major birder base of operations and staging post. In the morning HM takes a stroll and almost steps on a Blue-Crowned Motmot in the walkway. (I only got one fairly crappy shot at this bird through the trees over the course of the trip.) I've gotta reconfigure bags and gear from compact plane to quickly accessible field mode. Gawd that exercise can eat up a lot of time and energy.
Breakfast with fruit feeders on the other side of the glass. Great Kiskadees, Blue-Gray Tanagers, Clay-Colored Robins for company. That robin is the same genus as our American Robin species and looks just like it 'cept it's fairly uniformly brown. Its song got it status as Costa Rica's national bird but the plumage is astoundingly dull in comparison to just about anything else anyone could think of in that neck of the woods. Seem to be just about everywhere one looks throughout the country - or at least anywhere anybody's maintaining a fruit feeder.
I do an abbreviated gardens walk after breakfast. I'm surprised to note a Monarch butterfly or two 'cause I'd always thought it was a northern North American beast whose southernmost range was the south central Mexican wintering grounds. But Danaus plexippus is found all the way down on the continent and on the other sides of both the Atlantic and Pacific and a closely related bug does a good chunk of the northern area of South America.
We roll southeast into Cartago for a short stop at the Básilica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, on SSE into the Orosi Valley, back up north and east for lunch at La Casona del Cafetal on Lake Cachí, a dammed section of Rio Reventazón which is the main drain to the east out of the Central Valley.
In the parking area there's a tree in which I find a huge and spectacular Montezuma Oropendola. A closer look reveals a basket nest. A guy from one of the crafts stands off the edge of the lot unhooks a nest he'd collected after it had fallen and hands it to me. I insert my hand in the small opening at the top and totally lose my arm.
Not long into the trip I realize that it'll be a rare moment when we're NOT seeing Montezuma Oropendolas. When one or more of them descend upon a fruit feeder everything else clears out. Same deal we were seeing with the Cresteds in Trinidad.
Not much for the scope on the lake - a distant and partially hidden Great Egret. Lotsa mostly Turkey Vultures soaring the far slope and thermalling. A Rufous-Collared Sparrow nest being tended a few feet from our table.
Then back west through Cartago to pick up the Pan-Am and point the car towards Panama. I've put HM as a driver on the rental agreement 'cause I'm not fond of wheel hogging - in principle anyway. He's astoundingly mechanically clueless and is constantly irritated with me whenever I downshift to slow a vehicle. I know this is because he thinks that what's slowing the vehicle is transmission friction and wear - just like when braking it's friction and wear with pads, disks, drums. Attempts at education and/or recommendations to read the fuckin' manuals are treated as the most vile of insults. But this ain't gonna fly in this neck of Central America.
I get mildly violent and explain to him the concept of engine vacuum/braking - like it says in the fuckin' manual - and, much to my surprise, achieve some degree of success in getting through. We head down the Cordillera de Talamanca - climbing through cloudbase, mostly staying within, once or twice breaking through the top into sun and blue. Incredibly spectacular. And he's doing surprisingly well - even accepting a bit of coaching now and then.
We reach the turnoff to San Gerardo de Dote and our Savegre Reserve next destination. We're a bit over a hundred feet shy of ten thousand feet and we're gonna descend 28 hundred feet in under four crowflight / 5.7 "road" miles. This is a cliff with switchbacks and I take the helm. Screaming in first just about the whole way - air conditioning on and next to nothing in the way of brakes. And there'd have been even less if I'd earlier had the guts to look down at the instruments panel and realize that I'd only been doing about eighty percent of redline when I'd started to get real worried.
I'd never seen anything like it before and was rather proud of the job I did - minimizing stress on the car and maintaining wide safety margins.
The "Savegre Hotel, Natural Reserve & Spa" is industrial birding. Big complex, lotsa guides and guided excursions. Settled into 143 and took in our surroundings.
We get a couple of soaring Redtails. This (adult) pair is the first and will be the last of the trip. And they're resident - rather than migrants from back up north. And resident birds have low underside rufous plumage - which we can see.
They don't have feeders in the complex but they do have flowers and there's enough hummer action to keep things interesting.
A small group apologizes for invading our lodge space and checks out a White-Throated Mountain-Gem (hummer) nest out on the end of a branch in the narrow space between ours and the next unit to the south. Hell, if you're gonna keep turning us on to stuff like that keep invading our space all and any time you want. It's stuffed with two kids who look like they should've fledged yesterday.
Also have a Purple-Throated Mountain-Gem parking in some branches just in front of and above our porch.
The night sky - to someone who normally resides in Baltimore/Washington area light pollution hell - is spectacular. Ditto for virtually all the other stops in the country. But the elevation here totally blows away every other overnight location we hit in the country.
---
Amended:
2019/01/31 06:05:00 UTC
2019/02/01 13:25:00 UTC
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Flowers have a deal with hummers. They manufacture and dispense sugar water, in the process of sucking the sugar water the hummers get dusted with pollen, when that pollen gets transferred to another flower of the same species... (Birds and bees.)
It's to the flower's advantage to maximize the odds of the hummer visiting a flower of the same species on the next stop. Thus the evolution of long, narrow, curved flowers and hummer species with bills to match. But evolution also favors cheaters.
Slaty Flowerpiercer. Just punch a hole in the nectar end of flower and suck it dry. I win, you and the hummers lose. I knew about this, got to see it in action from the chairs in front of 143 on Savegre Morning One.
After breakfast drive up east out of the valley about five hundred vertical feet to the La Quebrada (Ravine) trailhead. Its primary appeal for us is that it's level.
It's kinda interesting walking under the dense canopy of this mature, higher altitude, tropical forest. But there's a low bird per hour / effort expenditure payoff. There's stuff to be heard but you gotta know what you're hearing and getting a clear line of sight to something is a bit of a rarity.
I FINALLY got some good shots at a couple woodcreepers but there are three plates worth of reasonable candidates in the field guide, "brown" is a pretty good description for all of them, and I knew I'd better get my shit together on details. I did but when I got back to the trailhead, car, field guide they weren't doing me much good. Fortunately we bumped into a big group with a good guide in the lead and he handed me Spot-Crowned as a match. Said they were common and noisy in that area.
And I'd heard woodpeckers close by and worked my butt off getting one on visual. Goddam Acorn. Cool bird but we'd seen zillions of them in the US southwest and it was hard NOT to be seeing them everywhere one looked back at the lodge area.
Return to base, lunch, check on the kids close to bulging out of their nest.
There's little birding area that's not part of the Savegre property - Feathers - a very short walk NE uphill from the lodges complex. You put five bucks in the honor system box and you're good for the day for parking your butt in the chairs facing another fruit feeder station.
There's a father and young adult son from Quebec - former shows up first, doesn't speak English, I'm able to put together most of a sentence for him courtesy high school French. (And back then I knew I was gonna be in trouble in the Western Hemisphere 'cause damn near all of it is Spanish.) Kid shows up, bilingual, communications improve. Neither one of them have optics of any description so my glasses get passed around a lot.
There's a tall wooden post just beyond the feeders and a pair of Acorns hanging out. They've got zillions of rice grains stored in little cavities just like they do for acorns in the standard sized ones.
A Swedish birder joins us, the sun gets low then disappears from sight, there's a stiff breeze coming through, I'm dressed only for daytime. The birds remain interesting enough and I don't wanna wimp out on my own but I'm praying for our little group to collectively throw in the towel. When they FINALLY DO I'm about seven minutes away from hypothermia death. Yeah, the latitude's only about nine and a half degrees but it IS winter and we ARE at 7200 feet. I put on close to every layer I have with me and they stay on until the sun's back up a good bit the next day.
It's New Year's Eve and a few volleys of fireworks light up the sky.
The Resplendent Quetzal is Costa Rica's Holy Grail bird. People come from all over the planet to get it in their sights. Our Savegre Reserve accommodations are in the Parque Nacional Los Quetzales neck of the woods. The ecotourism guys have the slopes laced with avocados and the Quetzals know where they're planted. Their pattern is to gorge themselves in the early morning then retreat into and forage into the forest as the day heats up.
They're not afraid of people 'cause just about all the people they ever see are adoring birders who've come from halfway around the planet to see and photograph them. One guy I talk to says he's touched a male's tail feathers without disturbing him.
We Savegre folk start assembling and linking up with our guides at around 05:00. The eastern horizon is starting to lighten but that position in the sky is still pretty spectacular. Waning crescent moon facing straight down, below it a blazing planet which we know has gotta be Venus, another bright planet below Venus and in the morning twilight.
Not Mars 'cause it's not red. So either Jupiter or Saturn. I'm packing my stabilized Canons, start running my mouth about how I've been able to see Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings through my handheld Leitz 7x42s, then think... What the hell - I've GOT a goddam TELESCOPE in the bag at my feet.
Snap things together, lock on, beautiful string of vertically aligned brilliant little moons. Galileo was right - not everything in the observable universe orbits around the earth. People line up and get blown away.
Our contingent hops in the truck and our guide rolls us three and two thirds klicks back north up the road to where the Quetzals have recently been showing up at the avocados like clockwork. The destination is packed and they already have the pair.
There's a young guy with a few million dollars worth of camera gear who fires off a diffused flash. I don't think the birds could've cared less but he almost gets lynched.
I pull out the tripods, scope, binocular and people line up. Somebody else is packing another Swarovski 25x85. The birds keep moving around a bit but we stay on them pretty well for a long time.
Also pick up a nice Black Guan that doesn't have much of a problem with crowds.
We return down the slope and a bit back up to the Batsù Garden, around 09°33'11.60" N 083°48'34.90" W, a little north of the Savegre complex. Feeders - cracked corn, fruit, hummers. The latter two are at a comfortable little pavilion overlooking a small chunk of the valley.
Our guide uses a mirror - rather than a laser - to direct our views to interesting feathered stuff. He's pretty good at it but this method - obviously - has its limitations.
Flash Guy is there feeling bad and embarrassed about the earlier morning incident, I give him my two cents that he didn't do anything that negatively affected the birds or viewers. And now, by way of contrast, I'm remembering an outing I was leading locally decades ago. The little sand point at the southern tip of Gibson Island that defines the division between mouth of the Magothy River and the Chesapeake Bay. It was loaded with resting gulls, terns, I forget what else and too late I realize that two or three assholes from the group have broken off and hiked out for closer looks/pictures. And guess what happens. I was totally furious.
Like I said... He has some serious looking gear (we've also got a National Geographic photographer in our little gathering at this spot) and I get to ask him a lot of geek questions about its capabilities. The state of the art in this era is pretty damned impressive.
At the fruit feeders we get a pair of brain dead easy and spectacular Emerald Toucanets - amongst a smattering of some of the more usual tropical fruit feeder suspects.
Hummer feeders... There's lotsa them and they're getting seriously swarmed. I go into hand feeding mode and the wife of Flash asks me if I think it'll work. "Yeah, it WILL work. The problem is that they've got way too many options." I get a little action, she says, "I'm feeling like I wanna try this." "Do it then. It's a blast."
I get her set up and that takes another human-free feeder option out of circulation. I get a little more aggressive, unhook another couple of feeders, set them down back by the chairs. We soon have them crawling all over us and Flash is getting it on pixels. Our guide comes back with a few other group members from a majorly unproductive excursion out on a trail and doesn't consider what we're doing to be "poor form" in the least. The hummers are still guzzling all the sugar water they want and the ecotourist kids are having really cool experiences and racking up some great memories.
If anything is poor form its the hummer feeders themselves. There's a lot of controversy about the ethics - several of our lodgings stops didn't and/or wouldn't run them. I'd previously looked into the issue and concluded that it wasn't a significant problem - 'specially if one is as anal as I am about keeping things as fresh and clean - and I'm not finding anything of substance currently either.
That being said... All the hummer feeders here and pretty much all the ones I saw in Costa Rica were those horrible and idiotic inverted bottle Perky Pet style disasters rather than the wonderful simple covered dish Aspects, Inc. flavor. The former pretty much CAN'T be properly cleaned and, for all practical purposes, never are.
Lunch, pack, say goodbye to the kids still managing to stay fitted in the nest, time to roll to San Vito.
It's to the flower's advantage to maximize the odds of the hummer visiting a flower of the same species on the next stop. Thus the evolution of long, narrow, curved flowers and hummer species with bills to match. But evolution also favors cheaters.
Slaty Flowerpiercer. Just punch a hole in the nectar end of flower and suck it dry. I win, you and the hummers lose. I knew about this, got to see it in action from the chairs in front of 143 on Savegre Morning One.
After breakfast drive up east out of the valley about five hundred vertical feet to the La Quebrada (Ravine) trailhead. Its primary appeal for us is that it's level.
It's kinda interesting walking under the dense canopy of this mature, higher altitude, tropical forest. But there's a low bird per hour / effort expenditure payoff. There's stuff to be heard but you gotta know what you're hearing and getting a clear line of sight to something is a bit of a rarity.
I FINALLY got some good shots at a couple woodcreepers but there are three plates worth of reasonable candidates in the field guide, "brown" is a pretty good description for all of them, and I knew I'd better get my shit together on details. I did but when I got back to the trailhead, car, field guide they weren't doing me much good. Fortunately we bumped into a big group with a good guide in the lead and he handed me Spot-Crowned as a match. Said they were common and noisy in that area.
And I'd heard woodpeckers close by and worked my butt off getting one on visual. Goddam Acorn. Cool bird but we'd seen zillions of them in the US southwest and it was hard NOT to be seeing them everywhere one looked back at the lodge area.
Return to base, lunch, check on the kids close to bulging out of their nest.
There's little birding area that's not part of the Savegre property - Feathers - a very short walk NE uphill from the lodges complex. You put five bucks in the honor system box and you're good for the day for parking your butt in the chairs facing another fruit feeder station.
There's a father and young adult son from Quebec - former shows up first, doesn't speak English, I'm able to put together most of a sentence for him courtesy high school French. (And back then I knew I was gonna be in trouble in the Western Hemisphere 'cause damn near all of it is Spanish.) Kid shows up, bilingual, communications improve. Neither one of them have optics of any description so my glasses get passed around a lot.
There's a tall wooden post just beyond the feeders and a pair of Acorns hanging out. They've got zillions of rice grains stored in little cavities just like they do for acorns in the standard sized ones.
A Swedish birder joins us, the sun gets low then disappears from sight, there's a stiff breeze coming through, I'm dressed only for daytime. The birds remain interesting enough and I don't wanna wimp out on my own but I'm praying for our little group to collectively throw in the towel. When they FINALLY DO I'm about seven minutes away from hypothermia death. Yeah, the latitude's only about nine and a half degrees but it IS winter and we ARE at 7200 feet. I put on close to every layer I have with me and they stay on until the sun's back up a good bit the next day.
It's New Year's Eve and a few volleys of fireworks light up the sky.
The Resplendent Quetzal is Costa Rica's Holy Grail bird. People come from all over the planet to get it in their sights. Our Savegre Reserve accommodations are in the Parque Nacional Los Quetzales neck of the woods. The ecotourism guys have the slopes laced with avocados and the Quetzals know where they're planted. Their pattern is to gorge themselves in the early morning then retreat into and forage into the forest as the day heats up.
They're not afraid of people 'cause just about all the people they ever see are adoring birders who've come from halfway around the planet to see and photograph them. One guy I talk to says he's touched a male's tail feathers without disturbing him.
We Savegre folk start assembling and linking up with our guides at around 05:00. The eastern horizon is starting to lighten but that position in the sky is still pretty spectacular. Waning crescent moon facing straight down, below it a blazing planet which we know has gotta be Venus, another bright planet below Venus and in the morning twilight.
Not Mars 'cause it's not red. So either Jupiter or Saturn. I'm packing my stabilized Canons, start running my mouth about how I've been able to see Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings through my handheld Leitz 7x42s, then think... What the hell - I've GOT a goddam TELESCOPE in the bag at my feet.
Snap things together, lock on, beautiful string of vertically aligned brilliant little moons. Galileo was right - not everything in the observable universe orbits around the earth. People line up and get blown away.
Our contingent hops in the truck and our guide rolls us three and two thirds klicks back north up the road to where the Quetzals have recently been showing up at the avocados like clockwork. The destination is packed and they already have the pair.
There's a young guy with a few million dollars worth of camera gear who fires off a diffused flash. I don't think the birds could've cared less but he almost gets lynched.
I pull out the tripods, scope, binocular and people line up. Somebody else is packing another Swarovski 25x85. The birds keep moving around a bit but we stay on them pretty well for a long time.
Also pick up a nice Black Guan that doesn't have much of a problem with crowds.
We return down the slope and a bit back up to the Batsù Garden, around 09°33'11.60" N 083°48'34.90" W, a little north of the Savegre complex. Feeders - cracked corn, fruit, hummers. The latter two are at a comfortable little pavilion overlooking a small chunk of the valley.
Our guide uses a mirror - rather than a laser - to direct our views to interesting feathered stuff. He's pretty good at it but this method - obviously - has its limitations.
Flash Guy is there feeling bad and embarrassed about the earlier morning incident, I give him my two cents that he didn't do anything that negatively affected the birds or viewers. And now, by way of contrast, I'm remembering an outing I was leading locally decades ago. The little sand point at the southern tip of Gibson Island that defines the division between mouth of the Magothy River and the Chesapeake Bay. It was loaded with resting gulls, terns, I forget what else and too late I realize that two or three assholes from the group have broken off and hiked out for closer looks/pictures. And guess what happens. I was totally furious.
Like I said... He has some serious looking gear (we've also got a National Geographic photographer in our little gathering at this spot) and I get to ask him a lot of geek questions about its capabilities. The state of the art in this era is pretty damned impressive.
At the fruit feeders we get a pair of brain dead easy and spectacular Emerald Toucanets - amongst a smattering of some of the more usual tropical fruit feeder suspects.
Hummer feeders... There's lotsa them and they're getting seriously swarmed. I go into hand feeding mode and the wife of Flash asks me if I think it'll work. "Yeah, it WILL work. The problem is that they've got way too many options." I get a little action, she says, "I'm feeling like I wanna try this." "Do it then. It's a blast."
I get her set up and that takes another human-free feeder option out of circulation. I get a little more aggressive, unhook another couple of feeders, set them down back by the chairs. We soon have them crawling all over us and Flash is getting it on pixels. Our guide comes back with a few other group members from a majorly unproductive excursion out on a trail and doesn't consider what we're doing to be "poor form" in the least. The hummers are still guzzling all the sugar water they want and the ecotourist kids are having really cool experiences and racking up some great memories.
If anything is poor form its the hummer feeders themselves. There's a lot of controversy about the ethics - several of our lodgings stops didn't and/or wouldn't run them. I'd previously looked into the issue and concluded that it wasn't a significant problem - 'specially if one is as anal as I am about keeping things as fresh and clean - and I'm not finding anything of substance currently either.
That being said... All the hummer feeders here and pretty much all the ones I saw in Costa Rica were those horrible and idiotic inverted bottle Perky Pet style disasters rather than the wonderful simple covered dish Aspects, Inc. flavor. The former pretty much CAN'T be properly cleaned and, for all practical purposes, never are.
Lunch, pack, say goodbye to the kids still managing to stay fitted in the nest, time to roll to San Vito.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
But we don't roll to San Vito. The battery turns the engine anemically for a few seconds then fades. We're parked uphill on a little plateau lot bow out but with minor bit of uphill in front of us. I pull out the jumper cables, go back to the office, get an employee to come out and hook up. We do the exercise right but still get nuthin'.
Plan C... Assemble enough muscle to be able to push the car into the position needed to take advantage of the hill. I've overestimated what it will take to move this thing forward and a wee bit up on the not-asphalt surface. I stay on the stern, have one of the guys take the clutch popping station, we've got enough momentum to get operational well before leaving the pad and using the downhill.
Thanks, twenty buck donation to the beer fund, on our way to scale the 2800 foot cliff back up to the Pan-Am. But soon there's a vehicle in apparent distress a modest way up aforementioned cliff and my render-aid reflexes kick in. I pull around them and STOP. Locals, language barrier, they're either not in trouble or not in any kind of trouble we can help with. But now WE'RE in trouble 'cause I can't get it in gear and forward motion without stalling it and can't back up to any flat option 'cause I've stopped too close in front of their vehicle.
The good news is that the engine's well up to temperature and the battery's got enough for some restarts. But I'm getting nowhere but more distressed and embarrassed.
One of the other party shows me some largish rocks. I think maybe the reason they stopped was to collect fossils or sumpin'. OK, thanks for showing me those. Then he gets through to me that they can be used as chocks to hold me stationary while I get it in gear. Works a helluva lot better than what I've been trying to do with the parking brake. THANKS!!! Whew.
Regain the Pan-Am without further incident and continue generally SW to Cerro de la Muerte. The Garmin's showing us cracking 11K but - as previously noted - we're actually topping out 58 feet shy of that mark. I'd harbored thoughts of giving that peak a stop but we're in bright white clouding so any view will be just more of the same and we're a bit pressed for time anyway.
Got another five miles or so of cordillera knife edge beyond before breaking off to the south and switchbacking back down to something approaching sane altitudes.
San Isidro de El General fits that bill at about 2.4K but Garmin routes us onto a somewhat suspicious SW heading. HM notes that things aren't computing but I figure we'll be good enough staying on the purple line. But after a good bit o' sustained SE and a fair bit of altitude regain I finally realize that this is SERIOUSLY WRONG.
Oh yeah. This goddam thing is routing us way the hell SW to the coast, at which point it'll have us running SE forever to a dozen miles shy of Panama, then turning us back north upslope to San Vito. I'd DONE this simulation back home, KNOWN this WOULD happen, punched in major intersections coordinates to use to route us as directly as geography would allow. But what with the pressures of stress and fatigue...
We're gonna be behind schedule and I wanna make sure that Hotel Cascata Del Bosco knows we WILL be showing up. I know that San Isidro will be oozing with cellular network coverage but I'm a total moron when it comes to iPhone competency. But I flip some likely looking settings, punch in the number, and George picks up. "Goddam! This thing actually WORKS!" So we're not in any danger of losing the little cabin.
I've got a couple river crossings targeted which will prevent Garmin from getting creative before just about all options for creativity are off the table - as per what I'd planned back home. But at some point Garmin DOES get creative anyway. Turns us off the main drag onto a potholed dirt road which quickly deteriorates into a goat path. Fuck this. OH! It found a route that saves us a hundred yards over a stretch of twelve miles. Doesn't matter in the least the the longer route is one of the nicest highways in the country while the shorter on isn't an actual road. (I've been unable to duplicate this one back home running the simulation.)
At some point I turn the helm over to HM. The countryside starts looking Crested Caracara and I soon pick up our first Crested Caracara. Also see some HUGE pineapple plantations.
It starts getting dark and, this being the tropics, quickly finishes getting dark. I don't like driving in the dark on lightly traveled roads in warm weather 'cause you kill a lot of insects that way. We do a river crossing and you hear this white noise effect as we annihilate hundreds of tiny little bugs per second. Totally sickening but it subsides fairly quickly as we climb out and away.
We're heading SE, below and parallel to the Cordillera de Talamanca. That translates to extensive stretches of steep windy climbs and descents across foothills ridges. In this underpowered Terios that means during ascents foot on the floor constantly and fast efficient downshifts the instants the RPMs start dipping. Otherwise one ends up chugging up to crests in second or first (rather than fourth or third) gears. I try to get this concept through to HM, fail miserably, take back the helm.
(In a similar situation much later in the trip he lets the speed drop to zero mph in second gear - total stop - then burns the fuck outta the clutch to get it moving again in first. Should've been a smooth climb-over in third.)
We get to Cascata del Bosco without further incident, park, explain our starting situation - which at that point is starts hot but not cold - to expat owner George Alcock. He sets us up with a good downhill starting situation then shows us our accommodations. They're kinda open to the jungle and he kinda apologizes for the huge Wolf Spider in the middle of the floor. No worries. I gently scoop it up and dump it over the rail.
Dinner at their restaurant, settle in, organize, crash.
Four thousand feet. Our second highest lodgings stop for the trip - but just a hundred feet up from our first at Hotel Bougainvillea.
Plan C... Assemble enough muscle to be able to push the car into the position needed to take advantage of the hill. I've overestimated what it will take to move this thing forward and a wee bit up on the not-asphalt surface. I stay on the stern, have one of the guys take the clutch popping station, we've got enough momentum to get operational well before leaving the pad and using the downhill.
Thanks, twenty buck donation to the beer fund, on our way to scale the 2800 foot cliff back up to the Pan-Am. But soon there's a vehicle in apparent distress a modest way up aforementioned cliff and my render-aid reflexes kick in. I pull around them and STOP. Locals, language barrier, they're either not in trouble or not in any kind of trouble we can help with. But now WE'RE in trouble 'cause I can't get it in gear and forward motion without stalling it and can't back up to any flat option 'cause I've stopped too close in front of their vehicle.
The good news is that the engine's well up to temperature and the battery's got enough for some restarts. But I'm getting nowhere but more distressed and embarrassed.
One of the other party shows me some largish rocks. I think maybe the reason they stopped was to collect fossils or sumpin'. OK, thanks for showing me those. Then he gets through to me that they can be used as chocks to hold me stationary while I get it in gear. Works a helluva lot better than what I've been trying to do with the parking brake. THANKS!!! Whew.
Regain the Pan-Am without further incident and continue generally SW to Cerro de la Muerte. The Garmin's showing us cracking 11K but - as previously noted - we're actually topping out 58 feet shy of that mark. I'd harbored thoughts of giving that peak a stop but we're in bright white clouding so any view will be just more of the same and we're a bit pressed for time anyway.
Got another five miles or so of cordillera knife edge beyond before breaking off to the south and switchbacking back down to something approaching sane altitudes.
San Isidro de El General fits that bill at about 2.4K but Garmin routes us onto a somewhat suspicious SW heading. HM notes that things aren't computing but I figure we'll be good enough staying on the purple line. But after a good bit o' sustained SE and a fair bit of altitude regain I finally realize that this is SERIOUSLY WRONG.
Oh yeah. This goddam thing is routing us way the hell SW to the coast, at which point it'll have us running SE forever to a dozen miles shy of Panama, then turning us back north upslope to San Vito. I'd DONE this simulation back home, KNOWN this WOULD happen, punched in major intersections coordinates to use to route us as directly as geography would allow. But what with the pressures of stress and fatigue...
We're gonna be behind schedule and I wanna make sure that Hotel Cascata Del Bosco knows we WILL be showing up. I know that San Isidro will be oozing with cellular network coverage but I'm a total moron when it comes to iPhone competency. But I flip some likely looking settings, punch in the number, and George picks up. "Goddam! This thing actually WORKS!" So we're not in any danger of losing the little cabin.
I've got a couple river crossings targeted which will prevent Garmin from getting creative before just about all options for creativity are off the table - as per what I'd planned back home. But at some point Garmin DOES get creative anyway. Turns us off the main drag onto a potholed dirt road which quickly deteriorates into a goat path. Fuck this. OH! It found a route that saves us a hundred yards over a stretch of twelve miles. Doesn't matter in the least the the longer route is one of the nicest highways in the country while the shorter on isn't an actual road. (I've been unable to duplicate this one back home running the simulation.)
At some point I turn the helm over to HM. The countryside starts looking Crested Caracara and I soon pick up our first Crested Caracara. Also see some HUGE pineapple plantations.
It starts getting dark and, this being the tropics, quickly finishes getting dark. I don't like driving in the dark on lightly traveled roads in warm weather 'cause you kill a lot of insects that way. We do a river crossing and you hear this white noise effect as we annihilate hundreds of tiny little bugs per second. Totally sickening but it subsides fairly quickly as we climb out and away.
We're heading SE, below and parallel to the Cordillera de Talamanca. That translates to extensive stretches of steep windy climbs and descents across foothills ridges. In this underpowered Terios that means during ascents foot on the floor constantly and fast efficient downshifts the instants the RPMs start dipping. Otherwise one ends up chugging up to crests in second or first (rather than fourth or third) gears. I try to get this concept through to HM, fail miserably, take back the helm.
(In a similar situation much later in the trip he lets the speed drop to zero mph in second gear - total stop - then burns the fuck outta the clutch to get it moving again in first. Should've been a smooth climb-over in third.)
We get to Cascata del Bosco without further incident, park, explain our starting situation - which at that point is starts hot but not cold - to expat owner George Alcock. He sets us up with a good downhill starting situation then shows us our accommodations. They're kinda open to the jungle and he kinda apologizes for the huge Wolf Spider in the middle of the floor. No worries. I gently scoop it up and dump it over the rail.
Dinner at their restaurant, settle in, organize, crash.
Four thousand feet. Our second highest lodgings stop for the trip - but just a hundred feet up from our first at Hotel Bougainvillea.
-
Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Morning of 2019/01/02 I'm still worried about getting the car going. George has me parked on a track leading down past one and to another largish clearing - probably for tent camping and other recreational activities. I'm not sure if I'll be able to maintain forward speed, complete a circle, re-emerge ready to continue to wherever. May have to stop, back up and redirect, resume forward motion. Every stop on flat ground is an opportunity to stall and not be able to restart minus lotsa muscle or a tow from another vehicle. So I go down on a scouting mission to see what I'll be dealing with.
As I'm going by the first field - on my right and looking like it might not be a great turn-in option a rather large bird flies in from my left and parks forty feet up in a tree in the clearing near the far side. Goddam Fiery-Billed Aracari!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdwatcher_1406/8441228455/
Bill Eaton
Wow, that sure was easy!
That was a high priority target for the trip. The cover bird for "The Birds of Costa Rica", the field guide we're packing. "It breeds only on the Pacific slopes of southern Costa Rica and western Panama."
Alexander Skutch was a legendary ornithologist who was born 1904/05/12 in Baltimore and died eight days shy of a century later. In 1941 he acquired some land under half a dozen miles SE of San Isidro which became the Los Cusingos (Fiery-Billed Aracari) Bird Sanctuary. On HM's 1981 local birders' group trip to Costa Rica they stayed there and birded with him. But unfortunately mine was the first and last hit for this bird on this trip for either of us.
The cabin has a really nice balcony in the back overlooking a nice stretch of forest. Parrots are a pain 'cause they're noisy so you know they're always around but they always come over too fast to lock onto then disappear into the canopy where you can't find and/or see them. But a Red-Lored Amazon breaks protocol and parks close in on a bare branch at balcony level and hands us an easy ID.
I've packed one of my Aspects, Inc. hummer feeders and figure out how to utilize a tripod and the PTH head to suspend it on the balcony. There's Rufous-Tailed working the extensive vervain out front but I fail to get any interest whatsoever. Moving it out front doesn't get any better results.
Later in the morning in the restaurant area I score my only (crappy) shot at a Blue-Crowned Motmot through some dense foliage.
At breakfast I talk to George about getting a new battery in town and he names a place that can take care of us fast and easy.
There's a big black iron pot or sumpin' at a fireplace in the restaurant area. On its rim some green seed pod thing has fallen from a tree and stuck. About the third time I pass it I take a better look and say wait-a-minute... It's a huge green caterpillar and I pick it up. The head has all these bizarre projections that make it look like the one on the front of a Chinese New Year's celebration street dragon. And it even moves it just like same. And the other end is split into two long lateral forks. Totally blows me away and I show it around to the few other guests doing breakfast. Pretty sure it's about to pupate, figure the edge of the forest is a better place for it than the one at which I'd found it.
I start my mission to relocate the car to a safer starting position and get it prepped for an excursion a stone's throw down the road to the Estación Biológica Las Cruces / Wilson Botanical Gardens complex. Whenever I'm prepped for a pop start I first give the key I try to see what I have in the way of battery first. Starts up fine. I get it down, turned around, back up, out, safely parked with lotsa downhill ahead just fine.
George grabs a meter and determines that the battery is fine - 12.8 Volts - and the charging system is delivering current just fine. OK, great, crisis over. Thanks bigtime. On our way. But I'll still park bow out and pointing downhill whenever possible.
Pull into the complex and park. I'm strapping on the glasses and getting ready to walk. There's a bird geek looking couple emerging from a trail below, I wanna get my Chinese Dragon IDed, call out, "Is there an entomologist in the house?" "No, but there's Bothrops asper on the trail back a bit." "What's that?" "A Fer-De-Lance." "OOH!!! That's a biggie on my to-do list! Where?" "One of the staffers is monitoring while the relocation team is mobilizing." "Thanks bigtime!"
I charge on down and find the staffer - non English speaking - is standing near this classically coiled pit viper who's been soaking up some direct sunlight on the uphill side of the trail, I'd guess a bit under three feet. Staffer leaves at some point, I sit close and soak in the scene and details. When I lean in a little closer for a little closer look the snake holds position but tightens up a little to make himself more invisible.
I kinda wanna touch him to be able to say I did but:
- this is a snake you really don't wanna fuck around with too much
- I've felt bad about disturbing a couple of Rattlers just for the sake of adding them to my caught list
I place a few big bamboo culm sheaths around the snake to make it even more obvious if the monitoring situation is interrupted. (As it shortly will be.)
I don't take pictures but this setup is too beautiful to pass up. And damm, I don't have my iPhone with me. Rush back to the car, as I'm getting the phone two guy and one chick staffers are coming done with the snake tongs and a box. She's the only one who speaks English and I have a little trouble getting through with a request to hold off for a minute to let me get a shot.
When we get to Ground Zero the snake's turned his head 180 from downhill and into the sun to uphill and out of the sun and the shot's gonna be crap relative to what it could've been. I feel rushed, lean over the snake for a bird's eye too quickly and closely, snake spooks and starts taking off uphill. At this point interference is gonna reduce stress for all concerned and I grab about two thirds back and erase his uphill escape progress.
I'm not hurting him, he's not interested in hurting me, doesn't make any move to threaten me, just continues trying to escape. They get him tonged and into the box with a minimum of stress and unpleasantness.
I take the tongs with my right hand and clamp as hard as I can on my left hand. The clamps have rubber sleeves and I'm pretty satisfied that you could easily securely clamp anything you wanted and not be able to hurt it if you tried.
Chick staffer is maintaining a really healthy safety radius. C'mon. Yeah, this is something you REALLY don't wanna get bit by. But you've just seen me grab it barehanded and it still hasn't indicated the SLIGHTEST INCLINATION to wanna harm me. All it wants to do is get safely away. What are you expecting it to do and what are you thinking its motivation is gonna be? Give me a hundred Fer-De-Lances that I can see at a range of two feet over one chigger that I can't see on a one inch blade of grass I'm about to brush with my boot any day of the week ferchrisake.
Back up the hill in the gardens there's a major Gray-Headed Chachalaca invasion.
Back up the hill two hundred yards on 237 I'm saddened to hear about all the Fer-De-Lances that were killed by workers during the construction of Hotel Cascata Del Bosco a bit under half a dozen years ago. George says that Costa Ricans totally hate the snake.
Other conversations with US expat staffers...
Those pineapple plantations we'd passed en route had not long before been old growth hardwood forest. Palms had been greased to facilitate the development.
This thing we still have up here in the White House. One of the guys had TONS of personal associations (don't recall whether or not any of them were family) with folk who were living in Paradise ("Pleasure"), California at the time - and tons of horror stories to go with them. Small world. I'd never even heard of that patch of California prior. (Guess I should've. Right next door to Oroville.)
As I'm going by the first field - on my right and looking like it might not be a great turn-in option a rather large bird flies in from my left and parks forty feet up in a tree in the clearing near the far side. Goddam Fiery-Billed Aracari!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdwatcher_1406/8441228455/
Bill Eaton
Wow, that sure was easy!
That was a high priority target for the trip. The cover bird for "The Birds of Costa Rica", the field guide we're packing. "It breeds only on the Pacific slopes of southern Costa Rica and western Panama."
Alexander Skutch was a legendary ornithologist who was born 1904/05/12 in Baltimore and died eight days shy of a century later. In 1941 he acquired some land under half a dozen miles SE of San Isidro which became the Los Cusingos (Fiery-Billed Aracari) Bird Sanctuary. On HM's 1981 local birders' group trip to Costa Rica they stayed there and birded with him. But unfortunately mine was the first and last hit for this bird on this trip for either of us.
The cabin has a really nice balcony in the back overlooking a nice stretch of forest. Parrots are a pain 'cause they're noisy so you know they're always around but they always come over too fast to lock onto then disappear into the canopy where you can't find and/or see them. But a Red-Lored Amazon breaks protocol and parks close in on a bare branch at balcony level and hands us an easy ID.
I've packed one of my Aspects, Inc. hummer feeders and figure out how to utilize a tripod and the PTH head to suspend it on the balcony. There's Rufous-Tailed working the extensive vervain out front but I fail to get any interest whatsoever. Moving it out front doesn't get any better results.
Later in the morning in the restaurant area I score my only (crappy) shot at a Blue-Crowned Motmot through some dense foliage.
At breakfast I talk to George about getting a new battery in town and he names a place that can take care of us fast and easy.
There's a big black iron pot or sumpin' at a fireplace in the restaurant area. On its rim some green seed pod thing has fallen from a tree and stuck. About the third time I pass it I take a better look and say wait-a-minute... It's a huge green caterpillar and I pick it up. The head has all these bizarre projections that make it look like the one on the front of a Chinese New Year's celebration street dragon. And it even moves it just like same. And the other end is split into two long lateral forks. Totally blows me away and I show it around to the few other guests doing breakfast. Pretty sure it's about to pupate, figure the edge of the forest is a better place for it than the one at which I'd found it.
I start my mission to relocate the car to a safer starting position and get it prepped for an excursion a stone's throw down the road to the Estación Biológica Las Cruces / Wilson Botanical Gardens complex. Whenever I'm prepped for a pop start I first give the key I try to see what I have in the way of battery first. Starts up fine. I get it down, turned around, back up, out, safely parked with lotsa downhill ahead just fine.
George grabs a meter and determines that the battery is fine - 12.8 Volts - and the charging system is delivering current just fine. OK, great, crisis over. Thanks bigtime. On our way. But I'll still park bow out and pointing downhill whenever possible.
Pull into the complex and park. I'm strapping on the glasses and getting ready to walk. There's a bird geek looking couple emerging from a trail below, I wanna get my Chinese Dragon IDed, call out, "Is there an entomologist in the house?" "No, but there's Bothrops asper on the trail back a bit." "What's that?" "A Fer-De-Lance." "OOH!!! That's a biggie on my to-do list! Where?" "One of the staffers is monitoring while the relocation team is mobilizing." "Thanks bigtime!"
I charge on down and find the staffer - non English speaking - is standing near this classically coiled pit viper who's been soaking up some direct sunlight on the uphill side of the trail, I'd guess a bit under three feet. Staffer leaves at some point, I sit close and soak in the scene and details. When I lean in a little closer for a little closer look the snake holds position but tightens up a little to make himself more invisible.
I kinda wanna touch him to be able to say I did but:
- this is a snake you really don't wanna fuck around with too much
- I've felt bad about disturbing a couple of Rattlers just for the sake of adding them to my caught list
I place a few big bamboo culm sheaths around the snake to make it even more obvious if the monitoring situation is interrupted. (As it shortly will be.)
I don't take pictures but this setup is too beautiful to pass up. And damm, I don't have my iPhone with me. Rush back to the car, as I'm getting the phone two guy and one chick staffers are coming done with the snake tongs and a box. She's the only one who speaks English and I have a little trouble getting through with a request to hold off for a minute to let me get a shot.
When we get to Ground Zero the snake's turned his head 180 from downhill and into the sun to uphill and out of the sun and the shot's gonna be crap relative to what it could've been. I feel rushed, lean over the snake for a bird's eye too quickly and closely, snake spooks and starts taking off uphill. At this point interference is gonna reduce stress for all concerned and I grab about two thirds back and erase his uphill escape progress.
I'm not hurting him, he's not interested in hurting me, doesn't make any move to threaten me, just continues trying to escape. They get him tonged and into the box with a minimum of stress and unpleasantness.
I take the tongs with my right hand and clamp as hard as I can on my left hand. The clamps have rubber sleeves and I'm pretty satisfied that you could easily securely clamp anything you wanted and not be able to hurt it if you tried.
Chick staffer is maintaining a really healthy safety radius. C'mon. Yeah, this is something you REALLY don't wanna get bit by. But you've just seen me grab it barehanded and it still hasn't indicated the SLIGHTEST INCLINATION to wanna harm me. All it wants to do is get safely away. What are you expecting it to do and what are you thinking its motivation is gonna be? Give me a hundred Fer-De-Lances that I can see at a range of two feet over one chigger that I can't see on a one inch blade of grass I'm about to brush with my boot any day of the week ferchrisake.
Back up the hill in the gardens there's a major Gray-Headed Chachalaca invasion.
Back up the hill two hundred yards on 237 I'm saddened to hear about all the Fer-De-Lances that were killed by workers during the construction of Hotel Cascata Del Bosco a bit under half a dozen years ago. George says that Costa Ricans totally hate the snake.
Other conversations with US expat staffers...
Those pineapple plantations we'd passed en route had not long before been old growth hardwood forest. Palms had been greased to facilitate the development.
This thing we still have up here in the White House. One of the guys had TONS of personal associations (don't recall whether or not any of them were family) with folk who were living in Paradise ("Pleasure"), California at the time - and tons of horror stories to go with them. Small world. I'd never even heard of that patch of California prior. (Guess I should've. Right next door to Oroville.)
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Morning of 2019/01/03 need to be prepped for an amphibious landing on the beach at Drake Bay for the Vista Drake Lodge stage of trip. One leaves the car at Sierpe, boards the water taxi at a nearby dock, winds down the Sierpe River through the mangrove swamps, breaks into the Pacific, steams on south to near final destination - around 08°41'25.23" N 083°40'07.50" W. The boat backs into the beach as far as bottom and conditions allow, one wades ashore and collects off-loaded baggage. Trip takes about an hour.
Hypothermia threat low so clothing layers necessary for survival at altitudes closing on five digits can be fairly safely sorted out, won't be driving anywhere so windshield mounts and associated power cables can stay in the car, some backup stuff... Everything I'm gonna need fits easily into the two big tripod bags and backpack.
Battery doesn't do it - again. Shit. Inform George, he has no idea what's going on either, thanks much, bye.
Four thousand feet of altitude to kill, all but one and a half hundred of it in the next seventeen miles it takes what's left of 237 to reach the Pan-Am. And it doesn't take long to close on a couple of idiot brakes riders. Way less toll on braking surfaces, gas tank, engine, transmission, nerves to just pull over for a while and let them build up big leads.
That works well a couple times until construction backups render the issue with them irrelevant.
At the closest point on 237 you're only a mile and a half from the border with Panama. And you're looking across the valley/gorge of Río Chiriquí Viejo to a really spectacular west facing slope.
Starting to worry about the ferry schedule, maintain a fast clip after clearing the bottlenecks when possible and safe. Turn off south immediately south of the bridge over Rio Grande de Terraba. 223 is all long straightaways interrupted with sharp nineties - obviously to accommodate huge plantations boundaries. I note the palms are all the same age and growing in very neat and precise rows. Get a queasy feeling.
Arrive at goal in a moderate state of panic with a fair bit less margin prior to 11:30 than I'd planned back at Cascata Del Bosco much earlier in the morning, can't risk killing the engine until getting it situated into a safe push starting option. A sixteen year old kid with what we Yanks would consider no trace of an accent gets me docked nicely in one of their secure parking options about a block away.
Get recovered and reorganized, turns out we arrived with TONS of time to spare before the actual departure from the dock.
They group people mostly by Drake Bay accommodations destination and sardine them into the boats at maybe twenty per, arranging with consideration to trim. I'm front row starboard, one in. Baggage goes in a big bow compartment under the deck. Two big outboards make us go - and go FAST across the smooth Sierpe River surface.
I don't understand very well what's supposed to happen at the other end beyond that fact that we've gotta wade ashore. The literature has advised using sandals for that phase of the operation but I'd declined to dedicate the necessary packing weight and volume for this item that's gonna see a maximum of two minutes of action over 26 days worth of trip.
But I'm a little worried 'cause my right foot is gonna be extremely unhappy if I'm gonna hafta negotiate much of anything involving stones. Broke it very badly blowing a stupid foot launch out of the Woodstock slot on the evening of 1992/06/20 when I failed to notice that the airflow had just switched to katabatic. The pain it causes has been CONSTANT in the quarter century plus since even with feet doing nothing and legs propped up to horizontal as I'm writing this and barefoot on irregular hard stuff...
Yank on my right looks like he's done this before and I ask about what fate awaits me. He describes how it's no BFD - they just turn the boats around, back them in until the stern's lightly grounded on the sand, get guys stern port and starboard to stabilize things, passengers brave the Pacific up to their knees, wade in five or ten yards to dry land, sit on the log to reunite with baggage and put their shoes back on, rocks aren't an issue.
I tell him what my concern was and how my foot got that way. Turns out he gave hang gliding a very short go about the same time - 1980 - that I began my career. Seattle area. We seemed to click fairly well, find out he's an MD from the aforementioned neck of the country and is heading to a property he owns on Drake Bay one stop before our Vista Drake destination, but shortly after clearing the dock the outboards end all conversations.
A bit downstream I notice him removing a plastic wrapper from a hard candy and continue scanning the river, sky, mangroves. Then out of the corner of my eye... Wait a minute. Did he just do what I THINK he just did? Dump the plastic wrapper OVER THE SIDE? A while later another candy comes out and this total dickhead confirms my suspicion.
I'm in total shock and don't know what to do. Tell him that using a global biodiversity...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcovado_National_Park
Corcovado National Park
Motherfucker confirms my suspicion at least another half dozen more times before he reaches his stop. Plenty enough to kill another Laysan Albatross chick on Midway - REPEATEDLY 'cause this shit just keeps on cycling forever. I end up saying and doing nothing, feigning civility as we part company.
I run this by our ecolodge hosts and guides for the rest of the trip and their reactions are all similar to mine - 'cept some are a lot less surprised. What should I have done about this at the time / do after I get home? One guide says that when some asshole throws the Cheetos bag out the window he tells the driver to stop the vehicle so he can walk back and retrieve it. I like that one but it wouldn't work for this situation.
I'm gonna write a few contacts to find out to whom I need to write about this one.
And when I reach my beach shortly after parting company with this dickhead the very first things I'm greeted by are a pair of identical plastic straws - the kind you always get five seconds after sitting down for lunch at a restaurant with the glass of water and lemon slice you didn't ask for or want.
Fifty plus vertical feet back east up the road from the beach to the Vista Drake Lodge and host Emilio Gonzalez. Settle in, gear up for an afternoon retracing of something around the second half our course of our water taxi ride in - 'cept with birds rather than distance being the goal.
Our guide is Neyer Campos - pretty major league, gets credited in the field guide we're using. Our fellow travelers were, it now occurs to me, all female. Interested but none of them moderately serious birders - easy to tell by the optics being carried or not. The youngest of the crowd has recently been treated for a substantial dog bite and starts out a bit under the weather.
There's some small islands / large rocks at the mouth of the Sierpe. Nice nesting habitat for Magnificent Frigatebirds and Brown Boobies. Strike out on Red-Footed. No shortage of Vultures - both species.
Back into the river. Herons, egrets, White Ibises, parrots... I score a couple of rather distant Yellow-Headed Caracaras for the group. In close to shore Neyer's trying to point out something in the branches, describing the position. I hand him my laser, end of problem, thanks, hands it back, keep it.
Brings our attention to a raptor high on an edge mangrove in beautiful light. "Goddam! That's a PEREGRINE!" Adult male. My day's starting to go a lot better.
Leave the wide open section of the river and take a narrow passage into the mangroves - barely wide enough to allow the boat to move. (Glad I've got the GPS with me.) Tide's kinda low, zillions of little Mangrove Crabs amongst the roots and branches. One gets grabbed and passed around. Break back out into the open river.
Neyer brings our attention to a pair of Scarlet Macaws in close formation crossing the river high and to the south downstream of us. Excellent light again. That was another major biggie for me. Tells us we'll be getting some more Macaw and Amazon action back at Vista Drake as they stage for overnight roosting.
Start making time to get back home. Using the GPS I clock us maintaining 39-40 mph on the glassy smooth river surface. When we break out into the ocean and hafta deal with mild swells. Speed drops to 28 but that translates to a lot of hard pounding.
Then when we're nearly home we reverse course. Word filters up from the stern that there's another water taxi / tour boat upriver that's lost power and we're running rescue. And we haul ass way the fuck back to not far below our previous mark. Then we turn around again and cut in the afterburners for the Vista Drake beach.
On the ocean leg I start figuring that this extra dose of pounding wasn't gonna do my lower back much good and reconfigured to stand like a jockey in the stirrups, leaning forward and grasping the back of the seat in front of me, letting my legs absorb the shock. Got to be a bit tiring but did the job. Got back with very little left in the way of daylight.
Turns out the dead boat was WAY upstream, our skipper made the decision to respond to the SOS. Guide got clued into the distance for our destination, Dog Bite was doing poorly, guide had skipper turn it around.
Kinda pissed about that one. Missed the evening parrots show, only saw reruns on the extra legs, we didn't rate being informed about what was going on, nobody benefitted from the extra stress and fuel burning, we were the ones paying for the fucking ride and that was a lot of expensive Costa Rica trip person hours down the toilet for nuthin'.
Dinner a bit back down the hill from Vista Drake, a House Gecko jumped onto the front of HM's shirt probably from the salad as it was being served, I grabbed it - another first for me.
Had to recatch him(?) a bunch of times as I was trying to get a good look at and release him at a safe place but he seemed to figure out quickly enough that I wasn't trying to eat him and settled down nicely.
I learned that they don't actually jump - they just suddenly dematerialize and instantly reassemble their molecules ten or so inches away from their starting point. Like a Star Trek transporter 'cept without any trace of de/re-materializing shimmer or delay.
Let him go in some of the thatched palm edging of an area of the roof.
Hypothermia threat low so clothing layers necessary for survival at altitudes closing on five digits can be fairly safely sorted out, won't be driving anywhere so windshield mounts and associated power cables can stay in the car, some backup stuff... Everything I'm gonna need fits easily into the two big tripod bags and backpack.
Battery doesn't do it - again. Shit. Inform George, he has no idea what's going on either, thanks much, bye.
Four thousand feet of altitude to kill, all but one and a half hundred of it in the next seventeen miles it takes what's left of 237 to reach the Pan-Am. And it doesn't take long to close on a couple of idiot brakes riders. Way less toll on braking surfaces, gas tank, engine, transmission, nerves to just pull over for a while and let them build up big leads.
That works well a couple times until construction backups render the issue with them irrelevant.
At the closest point on 237 you're only a mile and a half from the border with Panama. And you're looking across the valley/gorge of Río Chiriquí Viejo to a really spectacular west facing slope.
Starting to worry about the ferry schedule, maintain a fast clip after clearing the bottlenecks when possible and safe. Turn off south immediately south of the bridge over Rio Grande de Terraba. 223 is all long straightaways interrupted with sharp nineties - obviously to accommodate huge plantations boundaries. I note the palms are all the same age and growing in very neat and precise rows. Get a queasy feeling.
Arrive at goal in a moderate state of panic with a fair bit less margin prior to 11:30 than I'd planned back at Cascata Del Bosco much earlier in the morning, can't risk killing the engine until getting it situated into a safe push starting option. A sixteen year old kid with what we Yanks would consider no trace of an accent gets me docked nicely in one of their secure parking options about a block away.
Get recovered and reorganized, turns out we arrived with TONS of time to spare before the actual departure from the dock.
They group people mostly by Drake Bay accommodations destination and sardine them into the boats at maybe twenty per, arranging with consideration to trim. I'm front row starboard, one in. Baggage goes in a big bow compartment under the deck. Two big outboards make us go - and go FAST across the smooth Sierpe River surface.
I don't understand very well what's supposed to happen at the other end beyond that fact that we've gotta wade ashore. The literature has advised using sandals for that phase of the operation but I'd declined to dedicate the necessary packing weight and volume for this item that's gonna see a maximum of two minutes of action over 26 days worth of trip.
But I'm a little worried 'cause my right foot is gonna be extremely unhappy if I'm gonna hafta negotiate much of anything involving stones. Broke it very badly blowing a stupid foot launch out of the Woodstock slot on the evening of 1992/06/20 when I failed to notice that the airflow had just switched to katabatic. The pain it causes has been CONSTANT in the quarter century plus since even with feet doing nothing and legs propped up to horizontal as I'm writing this and barefoot on irregular hard stuff...
Yank on my right looks like he's done this before and I ask about what fate awaits me. He describes how it's no BFD - they just turn the boats around, back them in until the stern's lightly grounded on the sand, get guys stern port and starboard to stabilize things, passengers brave the Pacific up to their knees, wade in five or ten yards to dry land, sit on the log to reunite with baggage and put their shoes back on, rocks aren't an issue.
I tell him what my concern was and how my foot got that way. Turns out he gave hang gliding a very short go about the same time - 1980 - that I began my career. Seattle area. We seemed to click fairly well, find out he's an MD from the aforementioned neck of the country and is heading to a property he owns on Drake Bay one stop before our Vista Drake destination, but shortly after clearing the dock the outboards end all conversations.
A bit downstream I notice him removing a plastic wrapper from a hard candy and continue scanning the river, sky, mangroves. Then out of the corner of my eye... Wait a minute. Did he just do what I THINK he just did? Dump the plastic wrapper OVER THE SIDE? A while later another candy comes out and this total dickhead confirms my suspicion.
I'm in total shock and don't know what to do. Tell him that using a global biodiversity...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcovado_National_Park
Corcovado National Park
...treasure as his personal garbage can is a naughty thing to do? He's a fucking MD and he doesn't know that already? Bash the side of his head in and throw him overboard for the crocodiles? Nah, Costa Rica has this stupid prohibition against feeding wildlife.National Geographic has called it "the most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of biodiversity".
Motherfucker confirms my suspicion at least another half dozen more times before he reaches his stop. Plenty enough to kill another Laysan Albatross chick on Midway - REPEATEDLY 'cause this shit just keeps on cycling forever. I end up saying and doing nothing, feigning civility as we part company.
I run this by our ecolodge hosts and guides for the rest of the trip and their reactions are all similar to mine - 'cept some are a lot less surprised. What should I have done about this at the time / do after I get home? One guide says that when some asshole throws the Cheetos bag out the window he tells the driver to stop the vehicle so he can walk back and retrieve it. I like that one but it wouldn't work for this situation.
I'm gonna write a few contacts to find out to whom I need to write about this one.
And when I reach my beach shortly after parting company with this dickhead the very first things I'm greeted by are a pair of identical plastic straws - the kind you always get five seconds after sitting down for lunch at a restaurant with the glass of water and lemon slice you didn't ask for or want.
Fifty plus vertical feet back east up the road from the beach to the Vista Drake Lodge and host Emilio Gonzalez. Settle in, gear up for an afternoon retracing of something around the second half our course of our water taxi ride in - 'cept with birds rather than distance being the goal.
Our guide is Neyer Campos - pretty major league, gets credited in the field guide we're using. Our fellow travelers were, it now occurs to me, all female. Interested but none of them moderately serious birders - easy to tell by the optics being carried or not. The youngest of the crowd has recently been treated for a substantial dog bite and starts out a bit under the weather.
There's some small islands / large rocks at the mouth of the Sierpe. Nice nesting habitat for Magnificent Frigatebirds and Brown Boobies. Strike out on Red-Footed. No shortage of Vultures - both species.
Back into the river. Herons, egrets, White Ibises, parrots... I score a couple of rather distant Yellow-Headed Caracaras for the group. In close to shore Neyer's trying to point out something in the branches, describing the position. I hand him my laser, end of problem, thanks, hands it back, keep it.
Brings our attention to a raptor high on an edge mangrove in beautiful light. "Goddam! That's a PEREGRINE!" Adult male. My day's starting to go a lot better.
Leave the wide open section of the river and take a narrow passage into the mangroves - barely wide enough to allow the boat to move. (Glad I've got the GPS with me.) Tide's kinda low, zillions of little Mangrove Crabs amongst the roots and branches. One gets grabbed and passed around. Break back out into the open river.
Neyer brings our attention to a pair of Scarlet Macaws in close formation crossing the river high and to the south downstream of us. Excellent light again. That was another major biggie for me. Tells us we'll be getting some more Macaw and Amazon action back at Vista Drake as they stage for overnight roosting.
Start making time to get back home. Using the GPS I clock us maintaining 39-40 mph on the glassy smooth river surface. When we break out into the ocean and hafta deal with mild swells. Speed drops to 28 but that translates to a lot of hard pounding.
Then when we're nearly home we reverse course. Word filters up from the stern that there's another water taxi / tour boat upriver that's lost power and we're running rescue. And we haul ass way the fuck back to not far below our previous mark. Then we turn around again and cut in the afterburners for the Vista Drake beach.
On the ocean leg I start figuring that this extra dose of pounding wasn't gonna do my lower back much good and reconfigured to stand like a jockey in the stirrups, leaning forward and grasping the back of the seat in front of me, letting my legs absorb the shock. Got to be a bit tiring but did the job. Got back with very little left in the way of daylight.
Turns out the dead boat was WAY upstream, our skipper made the decision to respond to the SOS. Guide got clued into the distance for our destination, Dog Bite was doing poorly, guide had skipper turn it around.
Kinda pissed about that one. Missed the evening parrots show, only saw reruns on the extra legs, we didn't rate being informed about what was going on, nobody benefitted from the extra stress and fuel burning, we were the ones paying for the fucking ride and that was a lot of expensive Costa Rica trip person hours down the toilet for nuthin'.
Dinner a bit back down the hill from Vista Drake, a House Gecko jumped onto the front of HM's shirt probably from the salad as it was being served, I grabbed it - another first for me.
Had to recatch him(?) a bunch of times as I was trying to get a good look at and release him at a safe place but he seemed to figure out quickly enough that I wasn't trying to eat him and settled down nicely.
I learned that they don't actually jump - they just suddenly dematerialize and instantly reassemble their molecules ten or so inches away from their starting point. Like a Star Trek transporter 'cept without any trace of de/re-materializing shimmer or delay.
Let him go in some of the thatched palm edging of an area of the roof.
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TheFjordflier
- Posts: 74
- Joined: 2015/03/07 17:11:59 UTC
Re: birds
As before, thanks for the write ups. Always interesting.
Do you just observe the birds, or do you also photograph them?
Do you just observe the birds, or do you also photograph them?
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Tad Eareckson
- Posts: 9161
- Joined: 2010/11/25 03:48:55 UTC
Re: birds
Thanks again, more than welcome.As before, thanks for the write ups.
Some of these experiences get way too interesting.Always interesting.
I was going to deal with this issue later on in the report series. But since you've just asked...Do you just observe the birds, or do you also photograph them?
I did a lot of wildlife photography back in the late Seventies / early Eighties - the dark ages of film. But I eventually drifted away, lost interest, went into just observing mode. One issue was/is that I'm a pathological perfectionist - if it's not gonna be worthy of a National Geographic cover then don't bother.
Prior to these last two trips, Alaska and Costa Rica, I was just enjoying getting great views of stuff with my stabilized 10x42 glasses - and frequently letting other folk play with them.
But several Lower Kent County Christmas Bird Counts ago I took a look through a decent spotting scope and that started me reassessing.
Alaska... That trip totally DEMANDED a spotting scope to deal with all those almost limitless lines of sight - mountain ranges and open tundra and ocean. And scopes are meant to be shared. You lock onto a great target and let people take turns looking at the Sandhill Cranes - rather than spend half an hour describing their location so they can get mediocre views with their jiggling handheld binoculars.
But half, two thirds of the way into the Costa Rica trip I started realizing I'd made a big mistake in not doing photography.
People were going nuts when I'd set them up on the Resplendent Quetzals, Keel-Billed Toucans, the lunar eclipse... They'd be holding up whatever they had in the way of cameras - SLRs to iPhones up to the back end. And I started thinking...
SHIT! If I'd set myself up for digiscoping I'd have been able to get some real high quality shots for them. Hand out little slips of paper with my Flickr site address, post the shots, make them freely available.
Plus... My brain is total garbage on these high physical stress expeditions. I'm not learning or even remembering the birds I've seen. You get a good shot of something you've got a memory frozen and available for all the refresh you want, you look up the bird, identify, learn, remember it.
And then on the fourth to last afternoon in country I got a hawk beautifully locked up at a range of under a hundred yards who parked and preened FOREVER which I COULD NOT FIND in the field guide or anywhere else. I recorded meticulous detailed field notes on the laptop but people don't function that way anymore. The response was pretty much "Why didn't you just take a shot with your iPhone? (You moron.)" "Yeah. Can't believe I has that stupid." (Spoiler alert - I did eventually get him - but only by the most improbable of circumstances and luck.)
Another issue...
When I did the reports on the Belize and Trinidad/Tobago trips I illustrated them with quality shots of what we saw and often from the areas at which we saw it using (and duly crediting) others' work. I'd wanted to do the same for reports from the US southwest and Alaska trips as well but the effort involved is overwhelming. Much easier and probably better to shoot and use one's own shots.
So, shortly after returning I started trying to get myself up to speed on digiscoping.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W2qGvIErMM
I think I've got those basics down but I'm pretty lost in the forest with respect to what I should do in the way of a camera body. The choices, capabilities, options, price tags go through the stratosphere.
Stay tuned. I'm trying to get through this project but still feeling majorly exhausted pretty near constantly.